‘I loved the idea of having this modern and green heating system which we were told was going to give us really low bills,’ said Ms Claussen, 40. Indeed, Energy Performance Certificates issued on the new properties estimated annual electricity costs for heating and water at between £400 and £500.
But after living in the property for two months, Ms Claussen was shocked to receive an electricity bill for £252. Costs continued to mount for Ms Claussen and her neighbours on the Loves Farm Estate, and eventually the BPHA stepped in to help meet tenants’ bills – to the tune of £45,000.
By last Christmas, the Claussen family had unpaid bills of £1,500 and were on a key meter.
They found that during a cold snap they were having to spend £10 a day. ‘With such a high electricity bill, we had to choose between eating or keeping the house warm,’ Ms Claussen said. ‘The children were fed, but I hardly ate at all. It was an awful Christmas.’
God bless ’em, every one.
Big deal, my electric bills for the summer AC season are now over $200 a month here in F’n Ontario…thanks McGuinty!
At $10 pounds a day, that’s approx $450-$500 CAD per month. Actually beats Ontario.
Typical leftist promise.
My balanced billing is up to $467/mo~
Meh…reduce your heating bill by half or double it…by greeny math this is simply a rounding error…
Poor babies. Chez Phantom here had an electric furnace when I bought it. Yanked that out right smartly I can tell you. Propane now, because no gas mains in the country. Still not cheap, but a hell of a lot less than electric.
Gee, I wonder if any of these brainiacs have considered suing the government agency who specified this idiot thing? Big Bro always gots money.
Yeah OntariOWE…….
Once heating season begins…at least I can cook on the wood stove….
Because nobody does stupidity like the loony tune Greenies ..
“Green government procurement will also be essential in the early stages of a transition to a green economy. In 2009, global green stimulus spending reached $200 billion.”
SUCKERS!
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/government-burn-70-billion-a-year-subsidizing-renewables-and-wild-claims-of-fossil-fuel-subsidies-debunked/
Just to add insult to their economic injuries. My electrical bill last year was just south of $400.
Heh…keep dying slowly,dumb Brits (Morontarians).Somebody else can make use of your island,province.Green solar in a country that only sees a month of sun? Darwin’s Law.The stupid will die. You want sympathy? In the dictionary between sh1t and syphillis.
Hey,Ms Claussen. It was an “estimate”.Not their problem you used over half your annual in two months,without checking actual bills from others.Get another sweater,twit.
The only problem will be,how do us people who don’t fall for this green,eco-cult,socialist crap keep the idjits from our doors?
“Nothing saves $$ in Canadian winter like 3M window film. $100 off a heating bill helps me make the trips to the range more frequent – that’s more than 2 boxes of 44 mag no less.
Also something that made my son, whose bedroom is on top of the garage, happier: bought 3 styrofoam panels and glued them to the garage door panels. That keeps his room a few notches warmer in winter and cooler in summer. Cost me virtually nothing.
Those hi-tech contraptions only help to line the pockets of the manufacturers.
Posted by: 44guy at September 17, 2012 9:58 AM ”
Ahhhhhhh. There’s your problem,44guy.You think and do for yourself,without asking for gubermint help.Better double bolt that front door.The Green boots are on their way.
44Guy: Those window films actually work? Do you remove them for the summer months? These would be the ones you use a hair dryer to shrink them to fit, right?
Ah yes, but Ontario and Quebec have just signed an agreement to set up electification stations across the 2 Provinces to fast charge electric vehicles! That will prove a real cost saver! (sarc off)
Window films work. Particularly if you caulk around the window frame and fill up that crack between the frame and the wall first. I’ve lived plenty of places where you can feel a breeze from the sliding doors in winter. Put a window film on there, no more breeze.
Our heat pump provides a/c during summer for about $25 – $30/month. It cut the electrical heat consumption by 42%. It is all about the smarts of the installer as the horror stories abound otherwise.
Fortis kwh cost = to $0.112 cents all in (taxes). No doubt in my mind that they (Fortis + Province) want that number closer to 0.20 cents. Just put in a new heat pump system at cost of $8400.
Speaking of Fortis, our beloved former Premier Gordon Campbell, forced Fortis to sign contracts to purchase power from green private electricity providers to the tune of 18 cents/kwh. At the time Fortis rates were 6.8cents/kwh.
So, now we’ve got “smart” meters,and our once lowest-in- North America hydro rates are climbing, and climbing….
“44Guy: Those window films actually work? Do you remove them for the summer months? These would be the ones you use a hair dryer to shrink them to fit, right?
Posted by: BC Monkey at September 17, 2012 10:12 AM ”
Work like a charm. As phantom noted,do a little caulking first,apply the film,and bingo,drafts gone.You can actually see the film move where drafts would be coming in. Spent a winter in Fort Simpson,NWT(- 45C)in a 25 ft fifth wheel.Actually(no crap) had to open door when cooking using propane as was to hot.Used 2 one hundred lb tanks from mid-Oct to end March. Cost me 172 bucks.
Use them at home now.Heating costs went from around 250 bucks/month in winter(Edmonton) to 80.
And yes,they work in summer too to keep heat out.
Reliable,always there,and beats the heck out of waiting for the sun to come out to charge a solar/PV panel.
Ain’t it wonderful how, when government gets in there (anywhere) with their subsidies, something goes horribly wrong. Think corn-based biofuels (now a corn shortage in the US), solar (think Solyndra), electric vehicles (Chevy Volt, which costs GM more than they sell it for – but they make it up on volume. And one of the very best, McSquinty and his ecologically and economically disastrous windmills. BTW, my electricity bills in Calgary average $70/month. Gotta love natural gas.
Not to worry, this is all part of UN agenda 21 fomenting to its final solution. Governments have been quick to pick up on Agenda 21’s regulation and taxing of energy for home heat. The end result will be a remorseless plunder of the home owner until few can afford the utilities to run a large home then we start phase 2 of Agenda 21 where nothing over 5oo sq,ft. will be allowed to be built – impetus to be herded into government-subsidized sardine can housing – where they can keep a close eye on you.
It’s patently obvious the transnational sustainability “politburo” are using Orwell’s 1984 as a play book for the “sustainability” global model. Your car goes first (restricting your mobility) then your home (making you fully dependent on government subsidy)
Many of these green systems are just scams. Geothermal heating for example is largely a scam because as electricity rates continue to rise, it becomes less and less price competitive to natural gas. I have lost count how many people I know who have been tricked into putting in geothermal heating for their homes/pools only to regret it later once the real numbers come in.
And the eco warriors will not rest until all electricity rates reach California levels or higher (see Ontario for example).
While it is bad enough that private companies perpetrate these scams, what is shocking is that the government does it. The citizenry really needs to wake up and start taking their governments to task.
“Speaking of Fortis, our beloved former Premier Gordon Campbell, forced Fortis to sign contracts to purchase power from green private electricity providers to the tune of 18 cents/kwh. At the time Fortis rates were 6.8cents/kwh.”
dmorris don’t even get me started on that! Campbell was and is a disgrace, and the Liberals under Clark are no better.
Electricity rates in BC are going to continue to rise much much faster than inflation and the only people to blame are the Liberals.
“External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty.”
“Why does Scrooge love Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Because every buck is DEER to him.”
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Coming soon, to a province mear you……
Just wait until we get the time of use billing in BC. These terrorists will stop at nothing until all families leave this province to the homos and the hipster hippies.
‘Not to worry, this is all part of UN agenda 21 fomenting to its final solution. Governments have been quick to pick up on Agenda 21’s regulation and taxing of energy for home heat.’ posted by Occam @ 11:35.
Right you are Occam! Blueprints have arrived.
Smart meters make people sick, I have been told; something to do with the electrical magnetic field that they set up via grounding in the earth and interrupting the alternating current by forcing it to become a direct current
A g e n d a 21 for Dummies is on U tube.
Justthinkin, Ever have frozen propane issues at -40? When I was up in Yellowknife back when, a local pizzeria had a frozen valve and tried to thaw it with a tiger torch. Long story short, burnt down the pizza shop and the adjoining gentleman’s ballet. Downtown was like a skating rink for weeks.
BTW, caught the last of the LPGA Women’s British Open yesterday. They had a panorama shot of the setting sun against the local hillside… and there were bird choppers all over. G*d damn ugly things, not even picture worthy.
Texas Canuck…..Nope…you use simple insulation around your tank and lines.
I believe the boiling point of liquid propane is -38C. You won’t get any propane gas if the temp is lower. I’ve seen battery blankets used to heat propane tanks, though I’m sure it is not approved by the fire marshal.
I’m waiting for winter. I have built a solar collector into the gazebo roof to heat water. For the cost of two 1/12th horsepower pumps running intermittently as needed, I’m going to see how much I can heat the basement floor.
Y’all should check out this most excellent website for DIY alternate energy..the kind YOU build and use for YOUR benefit..not some foreign outfit suckin up taxpayer dollars;
http://www.otherpower.com
simply excellent stuff on there..Wind/solar/micro hydro, solar water heaters etc.
As for that complete (_i_)-Whole McGooph…that guy should be drawn n quartered. Seriously..He is in fact a criminal for what he and his buddies have done to Ontario’s Electricity system. Likely the main reason I left Barrie after a short 2 yr stop-over…came back west – Thank God.!
Note to Redford: Absolutely NO TOU meters.!!
Y’all should check out this most excellent website for DIY alternate energy..the kind YOU build and use for YOUR benefit..not some foreign outfit suckin up taxpayer dollars;
http://www.otherpower.com
simply excellent stuff on there..Wind/solar/micro hydro, solar water heaters etc.
As for that complete (_i_)-Whole McGooph…that guy should be drawn n quartered. Seriously..He is in fact a criminal for what he and his buddies have done to Ontario’s Electricity system. Likely the main reason I left Barrie after a short 2 yr stop-over…came back west – Thank God.!
Note to Redford: Absolutely NO TOU meters.!!
The problem isn’t the technology but rather using it for the wrong application.
A laptop computer makes a piss-poor hammer, but it would be foolish to stop using it as a computer because it’s a poor hammer.
Unfortunately that’s a distinction to subtle for some to grasp.
While I do not like many “green solutions” this one makes me look contrarian to the general response –
The system works – in Sweden – the way its maker says. But the company, and British builders, neglected to take into account the different (government) standards for insulation. The British isles have generally milder weather (Gulf Stream?) and homes are correspondingly less well insulated. The system cannot recover het that leaks all over the building…
Jema
Take off your tinfoil hat.
I’m not a fan of the SMs, for the, sure to come, time of use billing, despite Coleman’s public pronouncement that they “have no plans for time of day billing”. Just like they had no plans for the HST…..
But please, get off that pseudo-science crap about “smart meters make me sick”. It ruins credibility. I see this kind of justification all the time, “I saw it on the Intertube, here’s the web addy”.
Just because its on the Interwebby thingy, doesn’t make it true.
DannBC – Just warning people. It is always ‘smart’ to look into any innovation before allowing it into use at your place or on to your property. hope that being a skeptic does not make me sound crazy.
So this device is supposed to recover waste heat. That’s great but you have to create the heat in the first place before you can recover it, and as someone already said unless your house it completely air tight this system won’t do anything.
44guy, you are referring to reflective mylar-type film applied to the glass, yes? I have experience with that from Arizona, excellent at repelling heat. Basically the same idea as window tint in a vehicle, can save a bundle in AC costs. People down there also have shade cloth instead of standard window screens. Heat is a beeotch in Arizona.
In Ontario my biggest heat loss is air leaks. The mylar film reduces radiative loss but doesn’t stop air leaks. Window wrap stops leaks. Adding mylar to the windows couldn’t hurt, I’m sure.
For those who don’t like the intrusive “smart meters”, the solution is very simple. Wrap them in aluminum foil. I believe the BC electrical meters use Zigbee chips which transmit at about 2.4 GHz and the aluminum foil puts them in a Faraday cage and no signal leaks out. Once/month the aluminum foil can be removed to transmit total power used to the electrical company. Haven’t gotten around to looking at the Zigbee packets flying around my neighborhood yet due to lack of time. I put a sign under my conventional electrical meter letting BC Hydro know that I’d consider them changing out my meter criminal trespass. Still have the old meter.
If BC Hydro had been thinking they would have made the data packets travel over power lines which makes them harder to interfere with and would invalidate the simple Faraday cage method of blocking packets. Perhaps power line modems cost significantly more than Zigbee.
44guy, I know the stuff you mean. Its awesome. You can get bomb-resistant stuff too. Extra-geeky! 😀